Dave Winer, who has recently quit smoking, writes,
Weird fact about smoking cessation. Health insurance (apparently) won’t pay for it. What kind of sense does that make. The diseases caused by smoking are expensive, the cure — not so expensive. Maybe they’re owned by the tobacco industry?
Actually about 60 percent of health insurance programs cover some form of tobacco cessation program. But insurance companies are, in general, skeptical of such treatments because, frankly, tobacco cessation rarely works (most of the people I know who have quit smoking have done so like Dave did where they were in a situation that forced them to stop smoking).
Even the best tobacco cessation programs that use a combination of drugs and individual counseling only achieve a 10 to 20 percent success rate. Health insurance companies will rarely authorize treatments for any condition where the success rate is that low.
This is also the reason that insurance companies either don’t cover weight loss programs and drugs or else put a very tight leash on the use of such drugs. Some insurance companies, for example, will authorize payment for weight loss therapies but will yank approval very quickly unless patients meet target weight goals.